That got me to thinking about when I was working in TV for the city and schools. One thing I often did was tape holiday concerts in the schools. They were a huge hit. My favorite annual shoot was the multi-camera shoot we did for the high school orchestra concert. It was real PBS-quality stuff.
I started to think about those two things... being creative in your occupation and making people happy as some result of what you were doing. I think those were the things that made me the happiest in any of my previous jobs, and they're two aspects that are sorely lacking in my current day job.
There are little components of these things in some other things I do, but not for the 40 hours a week I put in to pay the bills. For example, I have to be creative and help people to succeed as a volleyball coach. That's the single most rewarding thing I do. People apparently get some joy out of my sites, particularly CoasterBuzz (otherwise it wouldn't be the first place 11,000 people go when big news breaks in the middle of the off-season).
I'm on the edge of being able to be creative and do things that result in happy people, it's so close. If I can only push toward it quickly, through all the little endeavors I have on the radar, I can drop this megacorporate crap job and make a living from it. If only I could keep enough energy after eight hours at that dump to make it happen!
Staying positive is a real challenge at times, as you find the balance between being a responsible adult and hanging on to the idealism of your youth. I think without the latter, you don't have much of a life.